We Were Soldiers (2002)
dir. by Randall Wallace

We agree with many movie critics that the movie "We Were Soldiers" departed 
heavily from critical Hollywood Vietnam war movies like "Full Metal Jacket" 
and "Platoon" or the highly personalized "Born on the Fourth of 
July." "Soldiers" not only tried to make the men of the 7th Airmobile 
Division look professional--"just doing my job, ma'am, nothing personal"--but 
it portrayed them as deeply patriotic, in an almost religious sense, devoid 
of politics. In this the film builds on the other recent war film, "Black 
Hawk Down," which also emphasized soldiers' personal commitment to each other 
over any discussion about what the soldiers were doing and why.

Thus, behind the weekly list of box-office hits--"biggest opening in a month 
beginning in 'J' in an odd-numbered year ever"--is the unseen hand of the 
Pentagon, White House and their super-patriot conspirators in Hollywood. They 
want to hype Amerika's sense of pride and unity.

In order to look objective, the "Soldiers" tried to strike a balance by 
showing the human side of the Vietnamese People's Army (NVA), the Amerikan 
adversary in the war. The film tried to recount the NVA struggle against the 
French--if only to differentiate the "freedom-loving" Amerikans from the 
colonizing French

But ultimately the film just made the Vietnamese look stupid to highlight the 
Amerikan technological advantage in the air and in firepower. Thus the film 
only justifies and escalates the awesome terror war machine that we witness 
today in Afgahistan and the Philippines.

Counterproductive self-glorification

Actually the film echoed all the anti-communist pictures in the past. "55 
Days in Peking" (1963), "Sand Pebbles" (1966), "The Green Berets" (1968) and 
other racist films that depicted Asian peasant-based revolutionaries as 
mindless suicidal hordes, doomed to be defeated by smarter, stronger 
Westerners.

But if the movie viewer will only be a keen observer one may ask: Is it not 
the height of desperation for a ground commander to order his air and 
artillery support to fire on his perimeter for the fear of being overrun by 
his enemies? Only a commander on the brink of defeat would give such an order.

Moshe Dayan, the Zionist defense minister in 1967 said, "The Vietnam War is a 
helicopter's war, so the U.S. will win this war." How wrong he was. In 1975, 
the US withdrew all its forces in Vietnam and until now is trying to exorcise 
the ghost of its terrible defeat in that war. All of the Amerikan 
imperialists' technological superiority could not save them from defeat in 
Vietnam, any more than it can stop "terrorist" attacks at home. 

You'd think the Amerikan imperialists would have learned their lesson and 
quit meddling in other nations' affairs; quit backing corrupt politicians 
allied with feudal lords; quit exploiting the world's majority. But they 
can't. It's in their nature, as Mao said. They are driven to conquer greater 
and greater profits, so they "make trouble, fail, and make trouble again" 
until the proletariat puts them down for good.

Hollywood makes this kind of movie to pacify ruffled hearts and minds. Movies 
will not exorcise the ghost of Amerika's defeat in Vietnam. It will take more 
than a wall of remembrance in to turn their defeat to victory.

Yes, Virginia, if the United $tates could not win in China, Vietnam, Cuba or 
any part of the world they want to, at least they can win in their movies 
like "We Were Soldiers."

--MZ276, a friend of MIM; edited by MC206